Avg. Speed: 12mph
Cumulative elevation gain: 600ft
Weather: 75 and T-storms, 90 and sun
Attitude: Happy to have a rest day tomorrow!
Today seemed like the hardest yet, but also the best. I've been getting a bit bored with the mostly straight, flat route, but today at last there were some adventures!
After the first turn this morning, I came to a T where there was no turn shown on the cue sheet. It was a dead end in one direction so I took off in the other direction, thinking it was just a minor mistake on the cue sheet. It took me a mile or so to realize that I had turned the wrong way at the first turn! So I got to ride an extra 3 miles today. Maybe that was why it was so hard....
Once back on the route, there were some cars stopped ahead, due to a couple of turtles crossing the road. A police car drove up, turned on his lights and stopped traffic, and the guy got out and carried the two turtles safely across.
We stayed on pleasant, low traffic residential streets for awhile and then came back out to A1A along the ocean, but this time there was a lot of accessible beach and it was very pretty. Along much of the coast they've made it illegal to cut across the dunes to the beach, so there are a lot of wildflowers, including a fair amount of prickly pear in bloom.
A bit of rumbling, a few drops of rain, and then a wham-bang downpour of a thunderstorm. And absolutely no place to take shelter! After a few miles of this we came to one of the little boardwalks across the dunes to the beach, and there a half dozen of us huddled under the boardwalk until the storm subsided. It was raining so hard most of the cars had pulled off the road. I actually think it's fun to ride in the nice warm rain down here.... even in the pouring rain it was still 75 F..... but not too smart to do in lightning. The storms here seem to only last 15 minutes or so, and it was fun to watch,
We all got pretty sandy from sitting under the boardwalk so went and rinsed off in that nice warm ocean afterwards. A few miles later we came to our ice-cream stop, and found a hose next door to finish cleaning off self and bike.
And the ice cream.... I didn't think I wanted any but then saw they had toasted coconut. Sooo good!
Unfortunately about this time, less than half way through the day, my neck and shoulder started hurting again, and I rode in pain for the rest of the day. There may be a recumbent in my future. A stretching stop about every 5 miles and a gas-station frappucino got me to the edge of St. Augustine, where a mango shave-ice, the best thing I have tasted in a long time, made the last few miles fly by.
I finally figured out why my camera lens keeps fogging up. I've been carrying it in my cameback, next to the ice. Duh.
Oh boy, there are two police cars right outside my window and they've stopped a black guy. Better get my video recorder ready. They're cuffing him. And into the car he goes, with no violence, thankfully.
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| Ice cream AND a butt-wash! |
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| Policeman carrying turtle. I asked him to pose but no dice. |
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| Miles of riding through puddles after the rain |
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